So there I was today, trying to have a civil conversation with Ruth Samuelson about her City Paper-branded lip balm, and there she was, waving the tube in my face, saying “Want some? You want some? Ooooooh” and snapping it away from me just as I flailed at it with my girly wrists. Not a high point. But I know what you’re thinking: City Paper lip balm? After the pens, the magnets, the hats, there’s lip balm, too?

Sadly, no. Marketing Director Jacqueline Law denies all knowledge of the lip balm. Our publisher, Amy Austin, told me she was pretty sure Kim Dorn, our former events and promotions manager, had it made in limited quantities for some “lip-balm-related event.” I e-mailed Dorn, and even though she’s in San Francisco, where the air is so magic that people can hear e-mails just like phone callsNew Orleans, she hasn’t gotten back to me. (@1713, she did; see UPDATE below)

Like heat or natural light, lip balm never made its way down to the editorial floor, except to Samuelson, who snagged hers upstairs. It’s kind of the Bigfoot of City Paper promotional items. E.g.,

UPDATE: Kim Dorn e-mails from New Orleans–not S.F., thanks for the bum steer, Hutto!–and says “I assume [the lip balm was for] a matches party, but I’m not sure…I do remember one of our promotional peddlers sent me free sample of CP lip balm and I was hooked, but I can’t remember if I ordered more, or just used the freebies.”

The hunt goes on. Two days ago, Eric Wills reported on City Desk that Manassas, Virginia Bigfoot researcher William Dranginis was “highly skeptical” that Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer of Georgia had a real Bigfoot body in their possession. Good call. Wired reports that yesterday’s much-hyped press conference came and went without a corpse to show.

At this point, all signs appear to point to some combination of hoax, scam, or publicity stunt. And a transparent one at that, according to Wired: “Casting further doubt on the pair’s announcement is analysis by several bloggers showing that their photograph bears an uncanny resemblance to a commercially available Bigfoot costume.”

Isn’t that always the way? Well, at least there’s a consolation prize, in the form of the Most Topical Bigfoot Description Ever:

“According to the team, the Bigfoot creature is 7-feet 7-inches tall, weighs over 500 pounds and has feet that are over 16 inches long, or about size 24. By comparison, Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is 6 feet 4 inches tall, weighs 165 pounds and has size 14 feet. Phelps is also nearly hairless, while Bigfoot appears to be covered in fur.”

For more on the Georgia Bigfoot press conference, see the Wired article. For more on Dranginis’s closer-to-home Bigfoot quest, see City Paper’s story “Hot For Creature.” For more on Michael Phelps, wait about ten minutes and someone near you will start talking about him.

As promised: your morning Bigfoot roundup!

William Dranginis is skeptical—make that highly skeptical—about the claim by two men that they discovered a dead Bigfoot in the Georgia woods. Matthew Whitton, a police officer, and Rick Dyer, a former correctional officer, have stored the supposed Bigfoot in a cooler and released some inconclusive photos. They plan to unveil the body tomorrow at a press conference in Palo Alto, California.

The duo has enlisted Tom Biscardi, a noted Bigfoot researcher since the 1970s, as their defacto spokesperson. But Dranginis, the president of the Virginia Bigfoot Research Organization, points out that Biscardi has been involved in a hoax before. In 2005, he claimed he had captured a Bigfoot weighing over 400 pounds and standing 8 feet tall. Turned out to be a publicity stunt.

Which is what we’re betting this is. Dranginis directed us to a YouTube video that shows Whitton and Dyer welcoming a Dr. Paul Van Buren into their home to study the corpse. Watch the video here. (No shortage of plugs for their website, bigfoottracker.com, which advertises their “one of a kind BIGFOOT EXPEDITIONS!!!!!!!!”)

Some sharp folks quickly deduced that Van Buren was actually Whitton’s brother.

After watching the clip, we have a message for Whitton: Grade school jokes about nuts aren’t helping your credibility.

“They must be living in a different dimension,” says Dranginis, because he can’t see what good can come of this. Whitton, a police officer, has put his job in jeopardy if this turns out to be a prank.

Tomorrow will tell.

“Either they have a body or they’re going to look like the biggest fools in the world,” says Dranginis.

—Eric Wills

Hot for Creature Update: Bigfoot enthusiasts Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer claim to have found the corpse of a Bigfoot creature in the woods of northern Georgia. You can read near-identical accounts here and here.

Check City Desk tomorrow for substantive analysis from William Dranginis, Bigfoot researcher and subject of Eric Wills‘ July 17 City Paper cover story.

—Ted Scheinman

Let’s play: What’s in My Inbox? It’s a fun game. It gives you a blog item when you’re a touch hungover from the Old 97’s show and blogging kind of sounds like how your stomach felt when you got home. Anyway: Today’s tasty box nugget is an invitation to join the Bigfoot Sketch Project. Pete@thepaintedcave.com wants to know what your sasquatch looks like. Well, Pete, mine came out looking like this:

Not sure why, but I think that the Art Instructions Schools may want me. Anyway: Pete’s invitation to me today also arrived with a news hook, courtesy of the CBC: “Berry pickers report sasquatch sighting in northern Ontario.” This is a fun article about Helen and her mom who were out raiding the blueberry bushes in Grassy Narrows when they saw something big and black and not quite right. It includes a wonderful little nut graf:

Sasquatch, an aboriginal word meaning “hairy giant,” refers to a large manlike creature some believe could be roaming woods from California up the West Coast and across Canada.

Obviously, the reporter on this is not aware that Bigfoot is, actually, in Virginia, only a short drive from the nation’s capital. If you haven’t read our 7/18 cover story, “Hot for Creature“, or watched the video starring William Dranginis, the most sane Bigfoot hunter you’d ever care to meet, get on it. Although, truth be told, I kind of wish I hadn’t read it before going camping. I stayed awake all night listening for sasquatch and he never did show up. Next time, sasquatch, I will find you, I will draw you. And I will follow Pete’s e-mailed instructions:

If you have seen the creature, Pete asks that you submit a detailed description and then buy a T-shirt.